On The Left Opposition Of The Soviet Communist Party's Programmes For Socialist Construction

After had the victory of October Revolution , faced the arduous task that build the world's first socialist state, the Soviet Communist Party had internal different perspectives, and formed different factions. Against the conditions of 1920s , the left opposition put forward a set of programmes for socialist construction which was different from the Soviet Communist Party Central line's. In 1930s, this programme had enormous impact on the socialist construction methods of Stalin's system.In the first part of this article, I introduced the historical background of the left opposition's proposals. From an economic point of view, because the implementation of the new economic policy, industrial and agricultural production have more rapid pace of recovery, the national economy recovered from the devastation of war. From a social point of view, however, with the economic recovery, the nascent bourgeoisie emerged in the cities,and the class divided in rural areas. The remaining large population flowed into the citys, caused serious unemployment problem. The problem that industry was backwarder than agriculture exacerbated, leading to the further expansion of the price scissors between industrial and agricultural products, which triggered a series of crises. From the point of view of national defense, the backwardness of industry, especially the heavy industry, is a tremendous danger to security of the Soviet Union which under the threat of capitalist powers. Left opposition summed up it to the wrong line of the Party Central Committee.Thus, the left opposition asked the Party Central Committee readjust the economic line, and introduce a new route which could inhibit the trend of class polarization and quickly change the backwardness of industry.The second part analysed the main ideas of the left opposition's programme. Firstly, the left opposition called for the strengthening economic ties with the world market, as far as possible to make use of foreign funds, technology, personnel and other services for the Soviet economy, but stressed that guarantee the safety of the domestic economy, so they firmly opposed to abandon the trade protection system, and criticized the Party Central Committee's trends of relaxed trade protection system. Secondly, the left opposition called for the rapid industrialized strategy, focused on the development of heavy industries, changed the situation that the Industrial growth rate falling behind the agriculture's, and the heavy industry lagging behind the pace of development in light industry. At the same time, eliminated the basis of the the price scissors between industrial and agricultural products, solved the problem of massive unemployment. Thirdly, in the agricultural development, the left opposition stood for encouraged overwhelming majority of individual farmers at different levels, step by step to participate in the collectivization of agriculture by demonstration of outstanding types , the popularize of cheap agricultural machinery and the policy preferences. At the same time, the left opposition advocated progressive income tax system, inhibit the trends of urban and rural class polarization, and resolutely opposed Stalin imposed the collectivization of agriculture on the individual farmers by the violent administrative means. Fourthly, in the State-owned commercial field, gradually marginalized the role of the market by planned means, but opposition to eradicated the market by mechanical administrative means.In the third part of this paper, I compared the left opposition's programmes to the Stalin's, pointing out that the similarities and differences between the two. At the same time,I evaluated the historical status and significance of the left opposition's programmes for socialist construction.